Derby Post Position Selection Order

[BitPlayer]

1. Visionaire (Lezcano)
2. Big Truck (Castellano)
3. Colnel John (Nakatani)
4. Z Fortune (Albarado)
5. Pyro (Bridgmohan)
6. Eight Belles (Saez)
7. Anak Nakal (Bejarano)
8. Court Vision (Gomez)
9. Z Humor (Douglas)
10. Monba (Dominguez)
11. Smooth Air (Cruz)
12. Adriano (Prado)
13. Bob Black Jack (Migliore)
14. Denis of Cork (Borel)
15. Cowboy Cal (Velazquez)
16. Big Brown (Desormeaux)
17. Tale of Ekati (Coa)
18. Cool Coal Man (Leparoux)
19. Recapturetheglory (Baird)
20. Gayego (Smith)

I notice that a lot of the horses expected to be near the pace will select positions late.

It will be interesting to see if Asmussen takes an inside post for Z Fortune.

[RICH]

Very nice, big brown outside, all the speed picking late. perfect

[scottv]

perfect for who?? what pace cenario do you see?

[magicnight]

Rich;

BB may not wind up outside. Picking 16th, the #1 or the #2 may be available. Given the choice between 1, 2, 18, 19 & 20 ... it\'ll be interesting to see where Tricky goes. Either way, BB will have to break clean and gas it.

Bob

[BitPlayer]

Magicnight -

Based on everything Dutrow has said, I\'d be surprised if he chose an inside post and took the risk of breaking slow and being shut off.

With more than a quarter mile to the first turn, there is a lot of time for a speed horse to get over from an outside post.  I wonder whether Dutrow might take post 20, even with 18 and 19 available, just to keep Recapturetheglory and Gayego inside of him.

[SoCalMan2]

If the guy is a betting man, he may pick post 20 just to scare other bettors off.  How many people say I like the 20 horse?

[magicnight]

Bit,

Based on the Fla Derby, and the amount of time that you spend in the gate if you are on the rail, I\'d have to agree with you. But, if he doesn\'t break from out there he\'s five or six wide, especially with so many of the speeds coming from inside or outside posts and needing to gas.

B

[miff]

So Cal,

Even though Tricky is a big gambler,he stands to make  app $1.5 to $2 million if BB wins the derby. I understand an offer exists in the $30-40 million range if BB wins.

Since Tricky was happy with death valley (post 12 at GP) I\'m thinking he goes outside instead of inside for sure.


Mike

[Rick B.]

SoCalMan2 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If the guy is a betting man, he may pick post 20
> just to scare other bettors off.  How many people
> say I like the 20 horse?
 
The casual money doesn\'t realize what a death knell the inside posts can be when there are 19-20 starters.

I like the 20 horse -- but only if his name is Big Brown.

[RICH]

If he goes way out 19-20 with speed inside you also have a few securing position inside of you which would/could make his trip pretty brutal. Lets say he\'s 3-4 wide on that first turn, what\'s he do then, how much is left in the tank at the 1/8 pole, I don\'t like it. This will be nothing like anything he has seen before. How can I take 5/2 on this? I can\'t.

[covelj70]

Couldn\'t agree more.  

There were enough questions about his foundation, lack of experience, etc for me before this draw and this makes it impossible for me to back him.  Very difficult to see how he doesn\'t get parked very wide or has to absolutely gas it to get to the front which will use him up.  I believe that only Winning Colors won the Derby going under 47 for the first half on the lead and I think he will either have to go much faster than that or be parked very wide.

Yes he overcame a bad post in the Florida Derby but he also was doing the electric slide down the lane (as was described in a previous post) and now he will have Col. John, Court Vision and maybe even Pyro running him down on a track that doesn\'t favor speed like GP does.

No thanks for me.

[toppled]

I\'m thinking the opposite (we\'ll find out in an hour).  Rick Dutrow thinks he has the best horse. Why would he be concerned about him breaking slowly? He has a history of breaking 1 or 2 anyway-why navigate across the field when you can have the rail?  I think he lays down the gauntlet & says catch me if you can & chooses the 1 or 2 post. He can always let the cheap speed overtake him once he gets position.  For Big Brown, the inside is better than the outside.

[alm]

I can\'t remember Gato Del Sol\'s trainer\'s name, but he\'s the guy who put to rest the idea that breaking from the outside at Churchill was a problem.

He had a friend at MIT analyze GDS\'s potential ground loss from the outside and he recommended the jockey eyeball the first turn and aim for it without fighting for position too soon.  A dozen or so Derby winners have followed this route since then, with little ill-effect.

Stop fantasizing about what a post means or doesn\'t mean.  The distribution of Derby winners from all posts is fairly non-descript.  The long first run through the stretch enables a horse with a little gas to earn a decent position from just about any of the posts.  It\'s the horses who get slammed at the start and the horses who naturally take back who have the biggest problems.